Mare Cognitum is the sole project of Santa Ana’s Jacob Buczarski, and while one-man bands are not exactly an oddity within the blackened realms, rarely are things so meticulously composed, arranged, and performed as on Phobos Monolith, the project’s third full length. Buczarski offers a brand of progressive black metal that is as atmospheric and emotionally soaring as it is clinically precise and even brutal (and not entirely out of place on I, Voidhanger Records). There is an staggering level of detail on display here, from the razor-sharp tremolo leads (they are many and they are spectacular) and intricate drum ideas (a syncopated hi-hat serves as the constant in opener “Weaving The Thread Of Transcendence”) to the busy bass work and varied, often scorching vocal delivery.
But it isn’t necessarily the instrumental prowess on hand that makes Phobos Monolith so impressive, nor the vision it took to put this all together, but rather the visions that it can and should induce through its moving compositions. Initially, much of the album feels like an incredibly good, yet familiar version of technical-but-atmospheric black metal, but bit by bit, the album’s big moments and emotional arc give the music a highly dramatic, even cinematic quality. In short, this thing conjures images.
Just when you think that Mare Cognitum is being ordinary, you’re hit with something that commands your attention like…
Many of these moments come in the form of Buczarski’s bottomless supply of tremolo riffs, which sometimes intertwine in a majestic musical dance, but at other times are sharper than…
It could also be a key transition. One particular stretch in “Entropic Hallucinations” seems to be leading back to a beastly, almost Anaal Nathrakhish set of riffs heard earlier, but instead drops everything, opening up the song to a space as big as…
But in truth, the imagination is most stoked by the album’s dynamics, and no song does that better than “Noumenon.” Beginning in moody, brooding fashion, it grows with each phrase through soft passages that feel a bit out of Eastern Europe to trem riffs that will melt you like…
Ideas that would not feel profound on their own become so through great juxtaposition, and just when the song feels like it has reached a conclusion, it finds a way to go higher. Eventually, it hits a moment of such intense triumph as…
That last moment is so absolutely grandiose that it almost leaves the listener drained. But 15 minute closer “Ephemeral Eternities” still waits, and it’s an absolute monster, twisting the well-established tremolo riffs into a malevolent force, while the technical rhythm work is blunter than anywhere else on the album, taking on a decidedly death metal feel at times. It is the grandest dance of battling elements on the album, enveloping the emotionally liberating release of its predecessor with something more reminiscent of…
Of course, these are merely my visions when hearing the album. The more one lets the imagination drift with each note, the more the music takes on greater life for the individual. Such is the beauty of complex art, and Phobos Monolith certainly is that. The album is so dynamic in both the light/dark and brutality/serenity senses, and yet is as instantly engaging as it is rewarding in the long term, that the feeling of escapism comes naturally.
Friends, this one is a stunner.
